Baby You Can Drive My Car, If You Can Find It

 I kept a secret for the last year, but now it's time to let that secret escape.

In September of 2016, our beloved Ford Focus fell victim to a guy trying to turn into traffic with the setting sun in his eyes. We replaced it with what became equally beloved, a 2014 Ford Escape, which I call burgundy but which is technically ruby red.

I cannot conceive of why there have to be fifty shades of red. When I became a volunteer firefighter, we had several fire trucks that were red. We had one that was burgundy. That's it. The names of colors never made us hungry.

Anyway, this car had a backup camera and a computer screen, neither of which I saw any use for, both of which I now wouldn't do without. We drove that car all over everywhere. Well, four states, anyway, and about two dozen state parks, not to mention Chicago. Don't get me started on Chicago.

It always amused me, how many ruby red SUVs we noticed on the road after that. Probably just the bias of us having one, but it seemed like we saw them everywhere.

"You get a ruby SUV, you get a ruby SUV--you all get a ruby SUV!"

When it developed a very small radiator leak I wasn't too concerned, until nobody could find the leak. I mean nobody, including mechanics and the dealer. Then one of the spark plugs started acting up. Then everything started acting up.

We drove it a LOT, mind you.

But estimates for fixing the problem, assuming we could figure out what the problem was, brought us into the "nickle and diming us" phase of car ownership. We needed a new car. Emily started researching, and I looked around.

Do you see Emily? I didn't--I almost got into the wrong car.

We found a car that was a heck of a deal, if we were willing to drive some distance to look at it. We did. We looked. We fell in love.

Much to our surprise, we drove back home in a different car than the one we'd left in. Having learned my lessons, I embraced the changes that came with a vehicle five years newer. It has so much extra safety equipment that the insurance cost actually went down.

It also has heated seats, and a heated steering wheel, two things I used to make fun of. No more. The screen showed us where we were and where we were going, and the computer could connect our phones (audio book, yay!), make us hot tea, warn us if we were approaching a politician with his hand out, and even play the radio.

And it had remote start.

Whoever invented the remote start needs to win the Nobel Prize For Awesome.

As we headed home, I suggested to Emily that we play a little game. "Let's not tell anyone we bought a car, and see how long before anyone notices."

You see, we replaced the ruby red 2014 Ford Escape with a ruby red 2019 Ford Escape.

The photo above shows them together--the new one's on the right. We took the front license plate off, but there's still a considerable difference in the front. In the back, not so much.

A few of my family members noticed right away--nobody else did unless I pointed it out to them. After all, someone else's car is not something the average person pays close attention to. Still, it was a lot of fun having the secret.

It was also a lot of fun seeing my speed in kilometers per hour: The car comes from Canada.

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Remember, you don't have to drive somewhere to buy our books ... although if you want to, why not?

Finding The Cure for Chicago traffic

 Seven years ago, I swore I would never, EVER drive in Chicago again.

Last Saturday, we drove to Chicago. Again.

It was for the same reason as last time, to see The Cure in concert. The Cure's music is ... well ... it's been called post-punk, gothic rock, new wave, and alternative. Robert Smith has fronted the band since the late 70s, so I assume it wasn't all that at the same time. Oddly, while I don't care for those types of music, I actually like The Cure. Not the way Emily does. Not "we have to go to Chicago to see them play". No, sir. But I love my wife, and proved yet again that I'm willing to put my life on the line for her.

 

The venue was different from last time, giving me the hope it wouldn't be as far into the city.

It wasn't as close. It was closer. We actually drove between the skyscrapers at one point. We experienced our version of "The Suicide Squad".

The place is called The United Center. As I understand it, some sports-ball team plays in it when concert season is over. The Bills, or the Bulls, or the Boobs, something like that.

We got the nosebleed seats, but I didn't realize how literal that was. Our seats were in the very last row of a stadium that seats 23,500 people (sold out), and to get there we had to buy rock climbing equipment and hire a sherpa. It never occured to me that anyone would put in sections so steep that your toes are at the level of the next fan's head, which I'm sure has caused a fight or two. The place had to have been built in the 50s--no way would authorities allow such a fall risk these days. If I'd slipped on the top step, I'd have kept tumbling until I bowled over the drummer.

(I checked: It opened in 1994. They probably had some celebratory hang gliders launch from our position that day.)

And the band? Well, the band was great, but I wish I'd brought my telescope. They looked like little Polly Pockets, if you remember those. Kind of micro-dolls. There were two big TV monitors beside the stage, but we could barely see those either, especially once the questionable smoke started to rise from the audience.

As you can see from the above photo, we actually had a seat right in the center. Cool, right? The crowd is shining their cell phones to bring the band back for an encore. I don't know what encores are in other places, but this was more like the halftime show.

The Cure started a little late, and after that "encore" we walked out to the parking lot, got in the car, and ... sat there. Driving to the venue had been a lot like the asteroid field in "Star Wars V: Crazy Drivers Strike Back". So we decided to let things clear a little, and the more we thought about it, the more we let things clear.

We were, in fact, the last car through the exit gate. On purpose.

 Surely, by well after midnight, both the concert crowd and regular traffic would have regained some measure of sanity, right? RIGHT?

Chicago driver are insane.

Not "bad". In fact, many of them are quite good in a NASCAR kind of a way. Sure, they may arrive with their cars covered in dents and scratches and pedestrians, at a speed that nets them a good 9 mpg gas mileage, but they'll get there fast.

Base, drums, amplifiers ... much calmer.

I had to drive 15 mph over the speed limit just to keep from being rear-ended. Even then, every few minutes something would streak around us like an F-15 doing a flyover. Then it would veer across three lanes, pass someone else, and dive back across the same three lanes without ever touching the brakes.

In heavy traffic. Well, it probably didn't seem heavy to them.

I'd like to speak specifically to everyone in the Chicago area who drives a Dodge Challenger. We saw the rear-end of several, because despite my instincts, I had to keep my eyes open. You people, you're crazy. Nuts. Looney-tunes. The fact that any of you survive is proof of guardian angels.

Typical Chicago Driver Enjoying the Mayhem.

 

As for us, there were only a few times when I had to stand on the brakes and swerve into another lane. Emily may have screamed, I don't know. I did. The rest of the time my death grip stayed on the steering wheel, my head on a swivel, and my stomach in my mouth.

We got home around 4 a.m., and after we stopped shaking slept most of the day. Then we woke up with a concert hangover. That's a real thing.

Then, the next day, Monday, my muscles remembered they'd spent six hours so tense you could bounce a quarter off them. Not to mention the three hours in the stadium seats, which were actually comfortable for the first hour. (Yeah, my ears popped on the way up, but nobody dropped a car on me.) Ironically, after all that sitting over the weekend, on Monday I couldn't get off the couch.

I'm glad Emily got to see her favorite band, and I'll take her again--if they ever come to Albion.

 

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Remember whenever you don't buy a book, another driver is born in Chicago. Oh, the humanity!

Murphy's Law Is Very Clear

Author's note (me. I'm the author): I wrote this back in 2021, and apparently never posted it anywhere except on Humor Outcasts. Murphy's Laws probably cover that. (It also doesn't explain why the text and background have changed color in this post.)
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 Murphy’s Law is very clear on certain points. Most of us are familiar with Murphy’s Law #1, which states that if anything can possibly go wrong, it will. There’s also Murphy’s Corollary #14, which says that if Mark Hunter attempts any manner of mechanically based activities, Murphy’s Law #1 is immediately in effect.

Then there’s Murphy’s Law #27, which was added to the list in 1923 by Murphy’s grandson, G.C. Murphy. I discovered Murphy’s Law #27 several years ago, when I paid off my car. It's the one that states, “Immediately after making the very last payment on something, it will break.”

I looked forward to paying off my car with mixed feelings. My car had been very good to me, and I didn’t want to see the poor thing fall apart just because I didn’t owe anything on it. Still, I figured as long as the cost of repairs didn’t exceed the payments, I’d break even.

Maybe “break” was a bad way to put it.

At the time I had a foreign car, a Nissan. Well, maybe foreign. Since many foreign cars are assembled in the U.S., and many American cars are assembled from parts made in other countries, the only way you can be sure of having an American vehicle these days is to build it yourself.

That I wasn’t prepared to do – see Murphy’s Corollary #14.

The first winter after I paid it off, the gas line froze. But in its defense, I don’t handle winter well, either.

 

I’ve owned one other foreign car, but it was made in France. The French car started almost every single time I turned the key – but whether it would then go was a crapshoot. It was a safe car, because cars that won’t leave the driveway rarely get into accidents.

I’ve also owned Fords, Chevys, Pontiacs, and a funky looking white Dodge Omni that my ex-wife sacrificed to the gods of utility poles. I have only one real requirement: They should start when I turn the key, and go where I steer. That’s about it.

My Nissan did that. Then, two months before it would be paid off, I was surprised by a letter from my friendly bank, informing me my loan had matured, and they would like all the rest of their money. Now.

I had no idea loans matured. I thought they came out of the bank fully grown.

I sent the money, then the bank sent me another letter to inform me I overpaid, and here’s my refund. Wasn’t that nice of them, to spend $2.67 on paper, envelope and stamp so I could get my $1.43? They were probably imagining the look on my face when I opened the envelope.

Now, from the moment I sent in that last check I had the feeling a huge, steel toed shoe was hovering over my head, ready to drop. To my surprise, the doors didn’t fall off when I sent the check. The engine didn’t explode when I received the refund. By the time the title arrived, I was so nervous I scheduled an oil change, just so I could say I’d taken care of the routine maintenance and was in no way at fault for whatever was about to happen.

The car I bought after the Nissan. This was taken after it was paid off.

 

As I sat in the waiting room, contemplating the pluses and minuses of buying a moped, the maintenance guy popped his head in and said cheerfully, “Your car is done!”

 My voice rose five octaves. “Oh my gosh! It’s done? Finished? Over? What happened? I need to be with it, to say goodbye–“

“No, no, you don’t understand – I mean, we’re done changing the oil.”

“Oh … thank goodness, I thought –“

“And you’re going to need new brakes soon.”

I refer you back to Murphy’s Law #27.

“How soon?” I asked. “A few months? A year or so?”

“Within two weeks, unless you live for thrills and close calls. You could buy an anchor, but depending on what it hooks onto, that could cause more harm than good.”

The new brakes – and I doubt I need to tell you this – cost the same as a car payment. But that’s hardly surprising:

Murphy’s Law is very clear.

(Postscript: My Nissan was later demolished by a hit and run driver. My next car was paid off, then totaled by a hit and stay driver. In my current vehicle, I twitch whenever I see any other cars come close. I’m sure that’s covered by another of Murphy’s Laws.)

My wife in our current car. Which we just paid off, so … it’s just a matter of time.

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